"Prozac Nation"

The amount of new prescription drugs discovered each year increases, so why are the numbers for mentally ill people increasing with it?  "If 'wonder drugs' like Prozac are really helping people, why has the number of Americans on government disability due to mental illness skyrocketed from 1.25 million in 1987 to over 4 million today?"(Mentall Illness, 2012)

Prozac is a drug that is commonly prescribed as an antidepressant.  There has actually been a best-selling book and movie based on the true story of Elizabeth Wurtzel, a girl who suffered from major depression during her freshman year at Harvard and was prescribed Prozac.  She describes her major depression as "Waking up every morning afraid you're going to live."  But throughout the book she recognizes the problem with Prozac; it's widely and unnecessarily prescribed.  She calls her doctor "her drug dealer" and her office the crack house. She states,"Seems like all the doctors have been dealing now, we live in a Prozac Nation." She claims the drug does more harm than good.

Elizabeth Wurtzel is right.  An article written by Boston.com states that depression used to be thought of as a defect in the chemical balance of the brain.  However, recent experiments have shown that it has more to do with the size of the neurons in the brain.  One of the pros of Prozac is that it helps stop many of the signs of depression, but that is simply because it strengthens the neurons, helping them to grow.  But anyone can make their neurons grow by proactive physical activitiy and exercise.  So why is Prozac prescribed so much?  Because it's easy.  It's easy to take a pill and feel happy, but not all depression needs the extremity of prescriptions.  Before prescribing, every possible method should be tried.  

"The best way to think about depression is as a mild neurodegenerative disorder," says Ronald Duman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale. "Your brain cells atrophy, just like in other diseases [such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's]. The only difference with depression is that it's reversible. The brain can recover."

This explanation of depression shows that it can be reversed, but taking pills is a solution that must be done throughout life.  Why take pills all the time when you can make a natural, empowering change in your life and fix it with the help of therapy or other methods.  The question doctors need to start asking themselves is: Do the pros outweigh the cons for certain medical treatment of the mentally ill?  Blindly prescribing medications can be harmful because the drug was made to treat the disorder; not the individual.  As with many drugs, side effects differ among individuals, some more severe than others.  Therefore, doctors must go further than matching a prescription with an illness.  They must look into the pros and cons and see exactly how this is effecting their patient as an individual.  In many cases, it may be more proactive to try other methods before taking the easy way out.

Shocking, Isn't It?

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock therapy, is stilled used today by many psychiatric hospitals today.  Despite it's reputation from the past being something like this...

... ECT is making a quiet comeback.  But no need to be scared because the World Association of Psychiatry (WPA) requires the consent of the patient before therapy can be pursued and there have actually been many success stories of ECT such as the following:

“In the past two years, I have had several courses of ECT to treat psychotic, suicidal depression and believe me, ECT was the only thing that helped at all.  Three months after my last maintenance treatment, my moods are stable and I am a successful graduate student. I have told my psychiatrist that he saved my life with the ECT. I hate to admit it because I find the treatments abhorrent, but I truly believe that this awful treatment has saved my life more than once."(http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/241309)

So how does this miraculous therapy work?  And who is it used on?  ECT is mainly used for those patients with severe depression, and has been since the 1930's, making it one of the oldest methods of depression treatment.  This therapy works by stimulating the brain through neurotransmitters, which are normally given through anti-depressant medication.  However, for patients who may not be able to handle the side effects of certain medications, ECT can give more effective outcomes.  Also, it works much quicker than most medications.  This is why it is used mainly for severe cases, who need treatment rapidly.  

ECT has actually been proven to be 80% effective.  Reading about this surprised me because I wanted to know why this isn't used more often.  Well, a downfall to this great therapy is memory loss.  However, these memories return within weeks of treatment.  Also, ECT has been proven to not cause brain damage.  Resistance to this treatment could be due to its lack of publicity or its bad reputation, but the effects of ECT are often underestimated.  While it may not be an ideal long-term treatment (perhaps because taking pills seems less tedious than going to sessions of ECT), this form of therapy is an effective treatment which helps those who need quick therapy in severe cases.

"Divided Minds"

Over spring break I finally had the time to leisure read.  After hours in Barnes & Noble I found a book called "Divided Minds"  This is a book about two twins: one who is diagnosed as a narcoleptic paranoid schizophrenic (Pammy) and the other becomes a psychiatrist (Lynnie).  When I read the back before buying this book it immediately grabbed my attention.  Not only do I love learning about schizophrenia but this story is told in a diary format between two sisters.  Just like "The Silent Room," that I talked about in my past blog, this book takes you through the mind of a schizophrenic.

One night when Pammy was feeling low, her roommate read her poetry.  This was a changing point in her life.  Soon Pammy realized that she had a gift.  She was an incredible writer.  Pammy wrote an essay about the ups and downs of her experiences with schizophrenia and all she has gone through because of it, along with a letter to the editor of Harvard's newspaper, asserting the right of the disabled, especially those with mental illness, to be treated as human beings.  Soon after she receives a call from Bob Roberts, the editor, "Your letter was quite articulate.  I'd be eager to have you write a longer piece tied into the current discussion of health-care reform."  Pammy accepts.  Soon after her phone was ringing off the hook with people sharing inspirational stories and complimenting her piece.  Then, Pammy receives a letter, "I am pleased to inform you that you are the first place winner of our 1993 Mental Health Media Award for your article."  Pammy is a graduate from Brown University, an award winning poet and an extraordinary writer.  She proves that although she has schizophrenia, schizophrenia doesn't have her.  

The most interesting part of this book was this quote by Lynnie talking about Pammy:

"On subways she's the kind of person who makes people nervous, one of those nameless, faceless street beggars who stumble about talking nonsense to themselves.  Or one of the drunks who camp on doorsteps, the derelicts that people curse, step around, or simply cross the street to avoid.. To the rest of the world she is not a brilliant, compassioante, incredibly talented poet and writer.  Other people don't see in her their aunt, or sister, their next-door neighbor laid low by an incurable illness. " 

(Pammy to the right and Lynnie to the left)

The reason why I want to be a psychiatrist is because of that quote by Lynnie.  Pammy has a family, a background, she was us at sometime.  I feel like people tend to forget that mental illness are just that, illnesses.  They effect a person but they don't define them.

Hypnosis

Now listen to my voice.  You're eyes are getting heavy.  You're going to fall asleep in 3... 2... 1... When you wake up... you will read my blog.  See, hypnosis does work!  Well considering you can't hear my voice hypnosis is probably impossible through a blog.  But does real hypnosis actually work?

My first encounter with hypnosis was at my friend's prom.  In the auditorium of their high school, a hypnotist managed to hypnotize the whole prom commitee.  It was quite entertaining.  The hypnotist made them do several things; ranging from singing and dancing to crying and acting.  The audience seemed to be skeptic at first.  Was the prom committee coaxed into providing an interested show? Or was this real hypnosis at work?  Well the hypnotist surprised us all by picking random people form the crowd several times and performing the same hypnotic procedure.  It worked every time.  

Penn State seems to be curious about this phenomenon also.  In research done here at the university, researchers wonder if hypnosis can actually be considered a successful psychological treatment.  An example of a possible situation to use hypnosis could be abuse therapy:  

“We have done a variety of EEG studies, one of which suggests that hypnosis removes the emotional experience of pain while allowing the sensory sensation to remain.  Thus, you notice you were touched but not that it hurt.”

If possible, this method of hypnosis could lift a burden off of someone's shoulders.  Abuse may haunt a person for life, but what if this method could alleviate the traumatic pain a little?

Penn State explains that we are hypnotized every day; whether it's a good book or an interesting movie, our attention is completely engrossed into an outside stimuli.  This is what hypnosis attentions to do: distract the mind.  But this distraction doesn't mean that the mind is gone during this state.  Penn State studies show that the brain is quite active and is successful when attempting to complete task while hypnotized.  While some people believe that this idea of hypnosis is ridiculous, Penn State seems to think that it's worth a shot.